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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A note of thanks...

Max, Jeff and I wanted to start out this post by thanking you all for the many e-mails and comments about Spike's passing yesterday - it smoothed the edges of a very rough day.

I mentioned on Monday's post that the pizza we had was the last meal Jeff was going to be able to have for a couple days. If yesterday wasn't tough enough already, in the morning he had to begin a "clear liquid" diet in preparation for a colonoscopy (sorry if that is too much information!) test this afternoon. So, he has only been allowed to have broth (homemade at least!), water, apple juice, Gatorade and Jell-O. Fun huh? One of the other restrictions was that nothing could have the colors purple or red! The test was a little soon considering his age, but his father passed away quite suddenly a couple weeks ago from colon cancer. On the plus side, the test came back completely normal!

Anyway, let's move away from the sad news and get back to the food. So, on Monday, I did serve a salad along side of that pizza that we didn't get a chance to talk about. Like most salads, this Arugula, Grape, and Sunflower Seed Salad came together in a hurry. With a combination of red wine vinegar, honey, pure maple syrup, stone-ground mustard and a few drizzles of olive oil, this dressing was tangy and slightly sweet - however, if you like your salad well-coated, you may want to double the amounts. While we love the peppery bite from Arugula, we cut the amount with some baby spinach for a more mild experience. Tossed with the greens are some crisp halved grapes, toasted sunflower seeds and a small amount of fresh thyme for an herbal note. We never use grapes much in salads for some reason, but the sweet juicy bites were a pleasant textural compliment to the tender leaves and crunchy seeds. Light and delicious, this recipe went to the top of the salad recipe pile to get made again soon!